April 3, 2017

Meet Dustin & Stacey Cohen of The Practice l Beverly Hills Boutique Dental

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dustin & Stacey Cohen.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Dustin & Stacey. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
It all started when we met at the beginning of dental school in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. We hit it off immediately and started dating by the second month of school. We sat next to each other everyday in every class for the next 4 years… we realized what we had was special if we could spend that much time together and not get sick of each other! We had both earned master’s degrees in business prior to entering dental school… which was highly unusual, likely the only 2 dental students with business degrees in the entire country. That business education allowed us to see dentistry from a different perspective compared to most people. During those 4 years in dental school, we planned out what we wanted to do professionally… those plans included moving to Los Angeles and opening a practice in the most competitive dental market in the world, Beverly Hills. Everyone thought we were crazy. After dental school, we both got into the same very competitive advanced training residency program at UCLA… the odds of which are highly unlikely. With about 6 months left of the program, we decided that we should start the job search in order to achieve the goal of working in Beverly Hills. Shortly after starting the job hunt, we received an email requesting a lunch meeting from Dr. Andrew Frank, a prominent Beverly Hills dentist. There was an immediate chemistry with Dr. Frank. The three of us then spent the next 6 months taking walks and discussing how to transition us into his high-end practice. After the residency was over, we began working at Dr. Frank’s practice… at the beginning we were part-time at a few offices… then slowly we worked our way into full-time. Dr. Frank was nice enough to allow us to make improvements to the business while we were still associates… including rebranding to The Practice | Beverly Hills Boutique Dental. After a few years, we purchased the practice from Dr. Frank… who still works part time. We love what we are doing, the business is setting records on a regular basis, and we get to work with amazingly interesting and creative patients!

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Oh we have definitely had some struggles! Both of us had difficulty getting accepted to dental school during our first time trying. Having to go through business school was a blessing in disguise though. The four years of dental school are extremely brutal… the stress of dental school is indescribable to anyone who hasn’t gone through a similar experience. The volume of work was incredible, the difficulty level was very high – you had to learn how to safely drill inside a very small dark place – and you have astronomical tuition bills to contend with. Dental residency after dental school was challenging because we were paid peanuts to live in Los Angeles for a year… every knows LA is not inexpensive. And now, running a business there are more hurdles to overcome than we could’ve ever imagined. If it’s not one thing, then it’s another…. but it beats working for someone!

The Practice | Beverly Hills Boutique Dental – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
The Practice | Beverly Hills is a boutique style dental office in Beverly Hills that provides an ultra-high level of customer service and clinical expertise. The majority of our work is cosmetic, preventive, and restorative dentistry. On a daily basis, our office sees patients for porcelain veneer treatments, crowns, fillings, and dental cleanings. We provide the Bespoke Dental Experience… the time spent at our office will be custom tailored to your comfort and preferences with the help of a short “personalize your visit” questionnaire. Some aspects of the Bespoke experience include: We always run on-time… that is what truly sets us apart from other medical/dental offices. No one waits in our waiting room! We know that our patients are very busy and the dental office can cause anxiety, especially when you are left waiting long periods of time to see the doctor… so we make sure that we reserve the proper amount of time for our procedures to keep a strict schedule. We also are one of the very few offices anywhere in the world that has an on-site lab with full time master ceramist. This allows us to provide the very highest quality dental work. With this lab, we are able to provide the most natural looking porcelain veneers or even something much more unique like a tattooed crown like we made with Dr. Woo (LA tattoo artist to the stars) or a pair of permanent porcelain fangs that look scary, but function properly… like we did on rapper/actor Ninja of Die Antwoord. We are also the first and only office in Beverly Hills to have the CariVu camera, a completely radiation-free way to see through your teeth! This allows us to significantly cut down on the use of X-rays compared to other offices. Our focus on the patient’s overall health (educating them on the mouth-body connection) and our holistic dentistry treatments also set us apart… we only use Mercury-Free, BPA-free & Triclosan-Free materials in our office. We have many celebrity clientele, like Sylvester Stallone & Sarah Paulson, because they know they can trust us to give them the ultimate level of service. And this service is given to EVERY patient, not just celebrities.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The proudest moment of our career was surviving the first year in business and having a kid! Dealing with two of the most stressful things in life at the same time was not easy! But we are happy to say we set an all-time business record for this office and watched our son, Jordan, turn 1 at the same time too!

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